In most industrial environments, protective eyewear is required by state, federal or company regulations. In such environments, protective eyewear is worn to provide protection from projectiles and falling objects. Conventional eyewear provides some protection from oncoming flying materials and objects, but provides substantially no protection from foreign objects arriving from peripheral angles. Further, many conventional prescription eyeglasses are not shatterproof. Thus, when those lenses shatter upon the impact of a foreign object, the corrective lens glass will often add to the optical injuries.
There have been prior attempts to provide a "one size fits all" protective eyewear. Such eyewear typically provided a loose, unstable fit for some persons, and a very tight and uncomfortable fit for others requiring corrective lens eyewear or those having a physically larger head. Not only do head size variations cause comfort problems, distortion of the protective eye frames and shields may tend to cause gaps between the frame/shield and the head which allow penetration of flying objects into the protected area. The situation is aggravated by the presence of vision correcting eyewear beneath the protective eyewear.
Various custom-made safety spectacles are available which have shatterproof lenses, side shields, etc. However, it is not practical to provide such customized spectacles to a temporary visitor at an industrial site.